Paris looks to his betrothed and speaks of her grave as a “bridal bed”, performing the ceremonies of a husband to wife after marriage. The ceremonies quickly shift to “obsequies”, or funeral ceremonies, later in Paris' dialogue.

1. In his first line, Paris fantasizes about what might have been – the wedding.
2. In his second line, Paris gets realistic and describes what is actually in front of him – a funeral scene. “Thy canopy is dust and stones,” he laments.

Above, the visual of Juliet’s death bed from
Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 movie adaption of the play.

~foreshadowing

The Page has the right idea in fearing the churchyard.

Juliet awakens to find Romeo collapsed with a cup – previously filled with poison – in his hands. He has just drank it, missing the chance to see that his love was alive all along. She tries to kiss his lips to pick up any traces of poison, calling it a “restorative”: the only thing that will heal her now is to be with Romeo in death.

Juliet speaks of his “timeless end” – Romeo’s timing was off only by a few minutes. If he had only waited, he would have seen that Juliet’s “death” only lasted for a matter of time. The tragic nature of the timing surrounding their deaths – and the unchangeable intent of Romeo going into the scene – recur throughout the final scene.

In the 1996 Baz Luhrmann movie adaption of the play, Romeo and Juliet overlap by just a few seconds – Juliet awakens just as Romeo is ingesting his poison. They tragically and gratefully get to see each other’s eyes one last time before realizing what has happened.

His universe has been turned upside down.
His intents – to kill himself by Juliet’s body – are wild. They’re fierce, fueled by passion, and unchangeable. Romeo evokes imagery of unchangeable nature and animal instinct to try to communicate his serious, passionate, and wild intents going into this scene.

~Guilt~

Father Lawrence experiences a great deal of guilt, for his role in this tragedy. He is the “greatest”, aka has done the the most to result in this tragedy occurring. But he is also able to do the least – 1) because what’s done is done and 2) because his plan to bring the lovers success has brought no action but pain and death.

He stands at a loss, both “condemned” and “excused”, debating between two key verbs:
1. Impeach – he has failed them in his role. He must take responsibility; the blood is on his hands.
2. Purge – he committed no crime except for a faulty plan; he committed no violence, therefore he is not responsible.

Duty

(p.13-14)

Connection to Batman?

For years, fans of the Batman comics have puzzled over a mystery at the heart of the series: why doesn’t Batman just kill his arch-nemesis, the murderous Joker?

The two have engaged in a prolonged game of cat-and-mouse. The Joker commits a crime, Batman catches him, the Joker is locked up, and then inevitably escapes.

Wouldn’t all this be much simpler if Batman just killed the Joker? What’s stopping him?

Enter philosopher Immanuel Kant and the deontological theory of ethics.
1. Kant argues that to act in the morally right way, people must act from duty.
2. Kant argues that it was not the consequences of actions that make them right or wrong but the motives of the person who carries out the action.

Natural dialectic

(p. 20)

a propensity to rationalize against those strict laws of duty, and to cast doubt on their validity, or at least their purity and strictness, and where possible, to make them better suited to our wishes and inclinations, i.e. fundamentally to corrupt them and deprive them of their entire dignity, something that in the end even common practical reason cannot endorse.

DUTY

(p. 13)

When preserving one’s life, when does the maxim have moral content, and when does it have not?

1. To preserve one’s life is one’s duty
2. One should preserve one’s life not in conformity with duty, but from duty
3. if preserving one’s life in conformity with duty, the maxim has no moral content
4. if preserving one’s life from duty, the maxim has moral content

Moral actions must be born from duty, not inclination. The moral worth of these actions comes not from their intended purpose, but in the maxim that resolved it: the principle of the will.

Another definition on (p. 16):

Duty is the necessity of an action from respect for the law